Feral Hunger
by Caz Malfoy
Summary: Vampire Ianto: He wasn't sure how long he had been there. Hours – at least. It could even have been days. He knew it couldn't have been longer than that; he would have gone mad already. He wasn't entirely sure he was completely sane anymore.


**Title:** Feral Hunger  
**Fandom:** Torchwood/Doctor Who  
**Pairing:** Mentions of past Ianto/OMC  
**Rating:** FRM  
**WARNING:** DARK THEMES. BLOOD. DEATH.  
**Summary:** _He wasn't sure how long he had been there. Hours – at least. It could even have been days. He knew it couldn't have been longer than that; he would have gone mad already. He wasn't entirely sure he was completely sane anymore._  
**Author's Note:** This is the sequel to Thirst for Revenge.

x

The voices were getting louder and louder with each passing hour. At first he had been able to block them out, to pretend to be deaf. But as the pain inside him grew, the background sounds grew louder as well.

Only it wasn't their voices he could hear. Their hearts were beating so loud. Thumping in their chests as blood was pumped around their bodies, filling their muscles.

He wasn't sure how long he had been there. Hours – at least. It could even have been days. He knew it couldn't have been longer than that; he would have gone mad already. He wasn't entirely sure he was completely sane anymore.

The pain inside him kept coming and going. At night, when the streets were empty, he didn't feel it when the constant noise from the surrounding area was missing. The days were the hardest. The sunlight shining through the window made him weak and he couldn't find it in him to actually move away from where the sun cast its light through the high windows.

Somewhere below him, he heard a creak – the sound of a door opening – impossible to hear by an average human's ear. But he had long since realised he wasn't anything like an average human anymore. An average human wouldn't be able to hear the man's – he could _smell _it was a male, female's smelt differently he had discovered – heart beating fast in his chest. The sound filled his body with apprehension.

The other's scent filled the room instantly when the door was opened and he licked his lips. The pain he had been feeling for days suddenly made sense. It had been hunger: a residual pain from not consuming anything for days.

He stayed completely still, lying slumped against the wall as he focused on the man. In the dim light he could see a uniform – a general, maybe? Possibly even a colonel.

"Excuse me, Sir?" the man called across the empty space. "Are you hurt?" he asked, cautiously taking steps closer. "I saw you from the street-,"

Fear pulsed in the General's veins and he licked his lips. He could almost _hear _the temptation in the other man's blood.

"I'm not here to hurt you," the man added, finally moving to within his reach. "I'm just here to-,"

He didn't manage to get the rest of his sentence out before Ianto drew his lips back and lunged forward. The hunger from days of self-imposed starvation driving him, Ianto pulled the General's head back and sunk his teeth into his neck before he could react.

The vampire moaned in ecstasy as he tasted the glorious copper explode on his tongue, greedily drinking down the other man's life essence. He tasted so damn good and Ianto couldn't help but wonder why he had resisted the urge for so long.

"A government official, Ianto? Really?"

Instantly Ianto dropped the body, not caring when his skull smashed against the concrete floor; he was dead anyway. "You!" he spat, scurrying back and pressing himself back against the wall. Blood was dripping down his chin, but he didn't care.

"We're supposed to keep low profiles, Ianto," the Doctor sighed, looking down at the dead body and crinkling his nose. "Killing high ranking officials does not constitute a low profile."

Ianto ignored him; instead turning his gaze to the three men the Doctor was with. They didn't have heartbeats; he could hear that even from across the room.

The Doctor, seeing where Ianto was looking, chuckled and nodded to the men on either side of him. "You didn't think I would come here alone, did you?" he asked.

"Get off me!" Ianto snarled, trying to pull himself free from the men's grip, but the lack of nutrition had weakened him considerably and it wasn't long before he was held firmly.

"The thing about newly turned vampires is," the Doctor continued, reaching into a pocket of his coat and pulling out a needle, "if they've gone unfed for days, they go feral and put all of us at risk."

He moved behind Ianto and sighed heavily. "This really is for your own good, Ianto," he whispered, pressing a soft kiss against the top of the other vampire's head before plunging the needle into Ianto's brainstem.

x

When Ianto woke, the world seemed to be on its side; nothing was the way it should be. He tried to sit up, tried to push himself into an upright position, but he couldn't move his arms or legs.

His eyes flickered up to the headboard – he had already established he was lying on a bed since it was too comfortable to be the floor – and he saw that his hands were bound by thick rope to the slats of the bed, as were his feet.

"You're awake," the Doctor's voice said from the doorway.

"Let me go," Ianto ordered, struggling against his binds as he tried to free himself.

The Doctor shook his head and stepped further into the room. "I can't do that, Ianto," he said softly.

As the older vampire got closer, Ianto could smell blood in the goblet he was holding. "I'm not drinking that," Ianto stated, turning his head away from the Doctor.

The other man sighed and ran his hand through Ianto's hair, tightening his grip painfully and forcing the crimson liquid down his throat. "Yes, you are," he replied, placing a hand under Ianto's chin, forcing him to keep his mouth closed. "I'm stronger than you, Ianto."

When he was certain Ianto wasn't going to spit the liquid out, he moved his hand away. He sighed sadly and ran his thumb over the corner of his childe's mouth, wiping away a stray droplet of blood.

"I can't let you out of here," he added, placing the goblet to the side and reaching under the bed. "You're a danger to everyone – both human and vampire alike – at the moment."

He retrieved a silver basin of water and dipped a cloth inside. "The hunger will dissipate in a few more days," he added, pressing the cold cloth against the newly turned vampire's clammy forehead.

"A few more days?" Ianto repeated, shivering lightly; the temperature of the liquid didn't bother him. The blood had stirred the hunger again and he wanted more. "How long have I been here?" he demanded, struggling once more.

The Doctor didn't look worried that Ianto would escape his binds. In fact, Ianto would go so far as to say he looked cocky that the younger man _wouldn't _escape. His cockiness just made Ianto want to get free quicker.

"Four days," he whispered, placing the bowl back on the floor and picking the goblet up once more. "And you had been missing for five days before we found you. If you had stayed with me the hunger wouldn't be this bad and we wouldn't have to do this to you."

He sighed and got to his feet, moving back to the door once more. "I'll be back in an hour with some more blood," he said, pausing at the door, his hand resting on the panelled wood.

"I don't want more," Ianto retorted petulantly.

The Doctor chuckled and shook his head. "Tough," he replied, not looking back as he left the room.

x

Ianto tried to keep count of how many times the Doctor came into his room, but he quickly lost count. Drifting in and out of a frenzied consciousness probably didn't help him either.

His food – the heated blood – was always brought in by the Doctor, never any one else. It had become obvious early on that the older vampire didn't trust anyone else to be alone with Ianto; whether it was for fear that they would release him, or fear of what Ianto would do to them, he didn't know.

The door opened and Ianto lazily lifted his head, expecting to see the Doctor. He was surprised to find a young black girl enter, dressed in casual trousers and a white shirt that would have better suited a man.

"Who are you?" he demanded, resting his head back on the pillows. He couldn't sense a heartbeat from the woman, so she was certainly a vampire.

"Martha Jones," she introduced herself, crossing the room and moving to untie the binds around his ankles.

"W-What are you doing?" Ianto spluttered, too surprised by what she was doing to actually move.

Martha rolled her eyes and moved to unfasten the cords around his wrists. "What do you think I'm doing?" she retorted, moving away once his arms were free.

Slowly Ianto sat up, expecting to feel blood rush to his head; he was a little surprised when it didn't, although he had a feeling he shouldn't be. "How do you know I'm not going to run at the first opportunity?"

Martha raised an eyebrow and looked over her shoulder as she pulled linen down from the nearby cupboard. "You're still here, aren't you?" she retorted.

At the door, Ianto paused when he heard her say, "The Doctor wants to see you."

He turned and looked at her as she stripped the bed of the dirty bed sheets. "The door at the end of the corridor," she added, nodding towards the door.

x

Ianto pushed the heavy door open, not bothering to knock, and was surprised to find himself in a library bigger than that at the Doctor's previous house – he could tell they weren't there now. The old house had been half the size of this.

"Wow," he breathed, unable to stop himself as he looked around at his surroundings.

The Doctor was sitting behind a large desk in the centre of the room and looked up when he heard his childe's voice. "Ah, Ianto," he greeted, taking his glasses off and placing them on the desk beside him. "You're up. How are you feeling?"

Ianto was too pre-occupied with the tomes around him to answer the Doctor's question and the older vampire laughed.

"The library is quite something isn't it?" he chuckled to himself, getting to his feet and moving around the desk. "There's something I want you to have."

Ianto finally turned his gaze away from the books and focused on the Doctor. "What are they?" he asked, watching as he picked up a small tin box from the desk.

Silently, the Doctor placed the tin in Ianto's hands and urged him to open it. Had there been any oxygen left in his lungs, Ianto knew he would have expelled it the instant he lifted the lid.

Inside the tin were roughly a dozen miniature portraits of Henry. "Doctor," Ianto whispered, nervously running the tip of his finger over one of the images almost as though he were afraid the image would vanish if he touched it. "Where did these come from?" he asked, looking up at the other man with tears in his eyes.

"While you were…" The Doctor struggled for the right word, "Incapacitated over this past two weeks, I had my artists draw up renditions of young Henry. I know it's not the same as the real thing, but…"

"Thank you," Ianto whispered sincerely, placing the lid back on and holding the tin close to his heart. "Thank you."

The Doctor smiled, thankful that Ianto appeared to like the gift.

"Why did you bring me here, Doctor?" Ianto finally asked, lowering the tin and looking up into the other vampire's eyes. "Surely I would have died if you had left me alone for a while longer."

The Doctor shook his head, placing his hands on Ianto's shoulders. "You wouldn't have died," he whispered. "You're already dead. Your hunger would have grown and grown until you couldn't control it any longer. Look at what you did to that General," he pointed out.

Ianto closed his eyes, feeling a swell of guilt inside him as he thought of what he had done. "Is he…" he choked on the word and he couldn't get the letters past his lips.

"Dead?" The Doctor nodded his head, "Yes. Don't worry about him, though. His body has been dealt with."

"Dealt with?" Ianto spluttered, his eyes widening in surprise. "You can't just deal with dead men!"

The Doctor rolled his eyes. "Dealing with them is all we can do. We disfigured his body a little, to make it look as though he were injured in some kind of freak accident."

"You can't do that!" Ianto exclaimed. "I killed a man and you've just… You've just covered it up as though it never happened!"

The Doctor grabbed hold of Ianto's arm in a grip that was tighter than he would have thought possible. "You killed a man, Ianto. While I don't care that you took his life – that's the best part of being a vampire – leaving him where you did would have drawn attention to us. The people in this area aren't stupid; they have heard legends about our kind."

"Legends?" Ianto repeated. "If they know about us, why haven't they come hunting?"

The Doctor laughed and released Ianto's arm. "They have," he said softly, nodding to a large painting Ianto hadn't noticed until that point. "My son, Matthew," he explained.

Ianto couldn't take his eyes off the picture. The resemblance to himself was so striking Ianto was actually freaked out by it.

"When I was turned I tried to keep living an ordinary life," the Doctor explained, lost in his memories. "I returned to my wife and Matthew – our only child. I guess I stayed too long. The villagers got suspicious and set fire to our farm."

Ianto finally broke his gaze away from the portrait and turned back to the Doctor. "What happened?"

"Clearly I got out," the Doctor replied. "Matthew and Elise were not as lucky." He heaved a sigh. "And there isn't a day that goes by, where I don't think of them and wish I could trade places with one of them."

"Matthew…" Ianto said, pointing up at the portrait. "He looks like…"

"Like you," the Doctor finished. "Yes, I know. Whether the similarity was what drew me to you in the first place, I don't know. But the point is," he continued, getting back on topic, "people are always hunting us. Leaving you out there are a newborn would be irresponsible of me and dangerous to the entire race."

Ianto sighed heavily and sunk down in the armchair, trying to not look at the portrait. "What do I do now?" he asked softly, running his fingers over his lips. "I can't stay here. I will go mad."

The Doctor chuckled and shook his head. "No one expects you to stay here forever, Ianto," he assured him. "Just stay for a while and get used to being one of us before you venture out into the world again."

"Trust me, for a newly vampire, the real world can be a very overwhelming place."

The End


End file.
